


and my queen will come at dawn

by Emmar



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Gen, Post-Game, beat and rhyme and eri and josh get mentioned too, but it's really about neku and shiki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 00:19:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmar/pseuds/Emmar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The weekends are nice, but he prefers the quiet weekday afternoons when it’s just the two of them, coffee at WildKat, and she talks and talks and talks.</p>
<p>(Post-Games, life goes on.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	and my queen will come at dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OrionPax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionPax/gifts).



> My first foray into this fandom! And also a pairing I don't really ship! (...Not that this is very shippy, but ssh.)
> 
> Title from UB40's Kingston Town.

They meet up most weeks, now, all four of them on weekends, and Neku spends half of it looking for someone who probably isn’t going to turn up. Eri is there, too, after a while, and it’s... confusing, at first.

The weekends are nice, but he prefers the quiet weekday afternoons when it’s just the two of them, coffee at WildKat, and she talks and talks and talks. When he blurts out, once, “I keep thinking Eri is you!”

And Shiki blinks at him, and then just-- starts to laugh. Laughs so hard she has to put her coffee down or risk spilling it, and when she gets her breath back, she tells him, “Me too,” and it sounds like a confession.

\---

Neku fills sketchbook after sketchbook, with full page portraits and little doodles and everything in between - a quick sketch of Rhyme sitting on Beat’s shoulders; Shiki and Eri with their heads bent together, discussing a new design; Mr. H hunched over one of the coffee machines, elbows deep in its guts; hundreds and hundreds of sketches of Josh from every angle, like drawing him over and over will somehow make him materialise.

(He draws Noise, sometimes, when his thoughts wander and he can’t quite concentrate. One is a perfect rendition of Konishi, _Tigris Cantus_ , and he burns it without a second thought.)

\---

The sun is warm without being too much, and they pile onto a low wall clutching their lunches in their little paper bags (Sunshine Stationside is _right there_ , after all) and about three different conversations start at once. Eventually, it reaches a point where Shiki is talking earnestly to Rhyme about something, and Eri is giving Beat a stern talking to about his clothes, by the sounds of it, and Neku is happy to just soak it all up.

And then it happens.

Joshua just goddamn appears out of thin air, because nobody’s going to notice that, obviously. (To Neku’s complete lack of surprise, _nobody does_.) And he’s got that same supercilious smile on his face, and Neku can’t for the life of him figure out what the hell he’s feeling right now.

And then there’s a touch on his wrist, and he damn near jumps out of his skin, and when he looks down, Shiki’s hand is on his, fingers laying gently against the back of his hand. He darts a glance up to her face, but she’s still talking away with Rhyme, looking for all the world like she’s not paying him any attention at all.

So he turns his hand over, and their fingers tangle together, and he manages to smile up at Josh, and tell him, “Hey. You’re late.”


End file.
